Developing an Opening Repertoire

The first step is to think about your personal style. Do you prefer open, tactical positions or closed, strategic positions? Does an attack on your king make you nervous, or are you happy so long as you have a counter-attack? Do you prefer main lines, or something slightly offbeat? Next, look at the various openings available, and see which ones fit in with your personal style. For example, when choosing an opening with Black against 1 e4, you might make some notes along the following lines:

1...c5: Open positions, tactical, attack and counter-attack. Scheveningen and Taimanov systems safer and less tactical than the Dragon, Najdorf and Pelikan. 

1...c6: Solid positions, strategic, safe king.

1...e6: Closed positions, strategic. 

1...e5: Fairly solid, but can lead to almost any type of position, depending on the follow-up. Petroff the most solid option. 

1...d6: Sharp positions. Attack and counter-attack. However, White does have solid options. 

1...d5: Slightly off-beat, fairly solid but a little passive. 

1...Nf6: Sharp positions. These days considered slightly off-beat. 

1...Nc6: Slightly off-beat. Need to consider what to play after 2 Nf3.

Do the same with openings against 1 d4, flank openings and with White. Then you have to consider how all these fit together. If you choose the Pirc against 1 e4, it makes sense to consider the King’s Indian against 1 d4. This is more flexible and will give you additional options later. For example, you may decide later that you would prefer not to allow the Sämisch against the King’s Indian. To this end you decide to meet 1 d4 with 1...d6, and against 2 c4 you will play 2...e5. Many players who would quite like to play this system with Black are put off by two things: firstly, White can play 2 e4 and secondly White can play 2 Nf3 (it is true that Black can meet 2 Nf3 by 2...Bg4, but many regard this as somewhat better for White). However, because your openings have been chosen to fit together, neither of these problems will bother you. The Pirc is already in your repertoire, and after 2 Nf3 you can play 2...Nf6 and enter a King’s Indian, but with the Sämisch having been ruled out. Likewise, the Caro-Kann and the Slav fit together, and then you can answer 1 c4 by 1...c6, without having to undertake any additional learning to cope with 2 e4. There is a temptation to choose some really unusual openings, because the amount of study required is much less. However, I would advise against this. Rarely played openings are usually rare precisely because they have some defect. Sooner or later your opponents will start to exploit this defect and then you will have to switch openings. If you choose another very unusual opening, the process will repeat itself. After a few years, you will have spent just as much effort as if you had chosen a mainstream opening in the first place, and you will have little to show for your efforts. This problem doesn’t arise with a repertoire based on main lines. First of all, such lines, which have been tried and tested in thousands of grandmaster games, are unlikely to be ‘busted’ in the first place. The worst that usually happens is that a small finesse leads to a minor reassessment of one line. Secondly, even if the worst happens and a blockbuster novelty finishes off a line, it is usually relatively easy to switch to another line within the same opening. Mainstream openings such as the Ruy Lopez or the Orthodox Queen’s Gambit are not merely single lines; they are massive complexes of different systems for both colours. 

Once you have chosen your openings, how best to study them? There is nothing better than a good book, which brings us on to our next topic.

Using Opening Books 

These days there are books on virtually every opening under the sun. Some are good, some are competent and some are bad. Unfortunately, it is often not easy to decide which is which. In choosing a good book, reviews are an obvious guide, but these are often not very helpful in the chess world. This is not necessarily the fault of the reviewers; I can testify from personal experience that reviewing openings books is a difficult and thankless task. In order to assess an opening book properly, you really have to be an expert in that particular opening. Of course, you can check to see if it is up-to-date and well-written, but a really good openings book will contain all those finesses which only a practitioner of the opening will know. Cunning move-orders designed to avoid particular lines, moves which caused a particular variation to be abandoned, but which were never actually played in a game – only a specialist will know whether such things are in the book or not. If one adds that chess book reviewers are normally unpaid (apart from receiving a free copy of the book), it is scarcely surprising that reviews of opening books tend towards a certain blandness. Major publishers are perhaps slightly safer than smaller operations, since they normally have some sort of quality control; having said that, they are also under far more commercial pressure to bring a book out on time, which can lead to a rushed job. The saying ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ is especially valid for chess books. The covers are normally made by designers rather than chess-players; of course they should be checked, but even so howlers occasionally slip through. In the end, the reputation of the author is probably the best guide to the quality of a book. Having chosen a book, it is best first of all to gain an overview of the opening. Look first at just the main lines to create a mental picture of the general structure of the opening. If the book contains illustrative games, it is worth playing these over first; you will probably already notice certain typical themes repeating themselves. In most major openings you will have a choice against each of the opponent’s possibilities. As with the choice of the main openings, make a list of the various options and see which ones suit your style. Keep transpositional possibilities and move-orders in mind, to make sure that your opponent cannot circumvent your proposed repertoire by a simple variation in move-order. 

Notice that so far there has been no detailed study. Everything has been careful planning – good groundwork and thoroughness is the secret of successful opening preparation. Once you have your repertoire mapped out, then you can study each line in detail. To begin with, only study the main lines – that will cope with 90% of your games, and you can easily fill in the unusual lines later. One important question is whether it is better to study an opening book that offers a pre-selected repertoire (often called ‘Winning With ...’, or a similar title), or one that offers a complete coverage of an opening. Certainly both books have their place and the ideal situation is to have one of each type for a given opening. It is certainly useful to have someone do much of the above-mentioned work for you, but nevertheless some lines in the proposed repertoire may not suit you, or developments since the book was published may throw doubt on some recommendations. In this case it is essential to have a source of alternative possibilities. More serious players who have a chess database (see also Chapter 5) may like to check this for recent developments before playing a particular line. A database is also useful for seeing which lines are currently popular, and therefore where one should be focusing one’s efforts. At first you may find that your results with a new opening are disappointing. This is more likely with strategic openings than ones based on precise analysis. When I started playing the Sicilian Najdorf, my results were very good. This is an opening in which concrete knowledge of specific lines is very important. I had just studied the opening in great detail, and so my knowledge was often better and more up-to-date than that of my opponents. On the other hand, playing a strategic opening requires a positional understanding which is better learnt by experience than from books. It may be several games before you get up to speed with such an opening, but be persistent – your efforts will be rewarded in the end. 

Books on Offbeat Openings 

A particular genre of books which deserves special attention is that dealing with dubious and rarely-played openings. As in all categories of opening books, there are good and bad examples. Typically, such a book will claim that opening X is unjustly neglected, that recent games have shown X to be playable after all and that all sorts of hidden resources and novelties are revealed for the first time in the book. Unfortunately, 99% of the time the reasons X is rarely played are entirely justified, the ‘recent games’ turn out to be encounters of little value between unknown players, and the resources and novelties will only stand a few seconds’ close examination. The tricks which authors can use to make openings such as X appear playable are many and varied, and are, of course, revealed for the first time in this book! It is hard to give details without concrete examples, so that means I will have to choose a couple of victims. In this particular genre there is a depressingly high proportion of poor books, and it would be easy to choose one of the really bad ones and have some fun. In fact I have chosen one of the better examples, Tony Kosten’s The Latvian Gambit (B.T. Batsford, 1995). This book is unusual in that a strong grandmaster has taken a look at a rarely played opening with a poor reputation. Tony was certainly taking on a real challenge with this title! When it arrived, I was quite baffled as to how the author had managed to fill up 144 pages; I had thought a detailed refutation would take 10 pages at most. I decided to use the book as a basis for a couple of hours’ analysis on the Latvian (the following section is based on this analysis). It is, of course, very rarely played and I would not expect a GM to dare it, but this enhances its surprise value. It would certainly be embarrassing to face it and plunge into deep thought on move three! Moreover, when a new book appears on an opening, it always encourages a few people to take it up, so the chances of meeting it were high enough to warrant devoting a little time to it.

When looking through ‘dubious opening’ analysis, look out for the following:

1) ‘Nothing moves’ by the opponent (i.e. the one facing the dubious opening), which only waste time. 

2) Lines in which the opponent pretends he is in the nineteenth century, cooperatively grabs all the material on offer and allows a brilliant finish. 

3) Lines which are given without any assessment. 

4) Secret code words. 

The fourth point perhaps requires some explanation. An author who is both honest and a strong player will have some doubts about the lines he is giving, and this often manifests itself in phrases which are the chess equivalent of a disclaimer in a contract. Less honest authors are entirely shameless about such matters. They recommend the most outrageously unsound lines without blushing even slightly. They would never play such lines themselves, of course. My second example is also a relatively high-quality product from a reliable GM author, Winning With the Giuoco Piano and the Max Lange Attack by Andrew Soltis (Chess Digest, 1992). Books with ‘Winning With’ in the title confer an extra responsibility on the author, in that the result of the author’s research is pre-determined. If the author reaches page 100 and discovers that the opening he is recommending is unsound, then he is unlikely to abandon the whole project. Of course, this probably won’t happen if the opening chosen is a popular, main-line system. ‘Winning With the Ruy Lopez’ is an uncontroversial title; many top GMs regularly play the Ruy Lopez hoping to win. The problems start to arise when ‘Winning With...’ is combined with an offbeat and unpopular opening, such as the Giuoco Piano. You can be sure that if the established theory of the Giuoco Piano favoured White, then lots of GMs would play it, but of course it does not. The author is therefore undertaking to discover something new which overturns the prevailing opinion. Then the crucial question is how convincing these new ideas are. 

5) ‘Winning With’ authors display great ingenuity in finding resources for ‘their’ side, but often overlook even quite simple tactical defences for the ‘other’ side.

This brings us to our next warning: 

6) Do not trust lines which are not based on practical examples. The more examples there are, and the higher the standard of the players, the more trust you can place in the line.

FIRST CHOICE :

CARO-SLAV PAWN STRUCTURE

You can use Caro-Kann defense against 1.e4 and Queen's Gambit against 1.d4. These two openings have a lot of similar middlegames and studying pawn structures for both sides will greatly help you.

One well known very good combo is the Caro-Kann + the Slav:

The main objective of both of these openings is to develop the light-squared Bishop to f5 before it gets locked inside the Pawn chain.

They tend to lead to roughly similar Pawn structures.

On average they both tend to lead to positional, quiet and strategic games.

And most importantly, if you choose both of these openings, against 1. c4 you can play 1...c6 which can transpose into either a Slav (2. d4) or a Caro-Kann Panov/Pseudo-Panov (2. e4).

SECOND CHOICE:

The second choice is Sicilian defense-Dragon variation or Modern defense for 1.e4 and King's Indian defense on 1.d4.

A lot of work is required here, but these openings give better winning chances for Black than Queen's Gambit and French / Caro-Kann defense. They are also immune to transpositional tricks.

QGD + Caro-Kann/French give you positional play, yet KIA and Sicilian/modern tend to be much sharper.

I chose QGD and French, and never regretted it, because I always "stayed in the opening" and the ideas are clear and simple. Still, I must add that these are harder to play then KIA and Sicilian/Modern, and achieving victory with Black is nearly impossible against quality opposition.

In the end, I recommend you Andrew Soltis-Pawn Structure Chess to help you grasp the middlegame concepts. With proper repertoire books you should be OK.